Le roi des pilleurs de tombes

Chapitre 15

There is nothing more joyful than being embraced by someone you are grateful for.

Of course, some patients cursed and even nearly hit each other—Lü Xuda was actually punched twice. But after these patients who had "escaped death" calmed down and talked about everything they had done and every detail of their lives during those crucial three days, they would leave with beaming smiles.

They were all very grateful for this "crisis plan".

All the patients who had "near-death" experiences agreed that the imagined life-altering experience of having only one month left to live greatly stimulated their reflection on their own lives. Some, even without doing anything during those three days, underwent a profound mental revolution. It was of extraordinary significance.

There are so many things worth grasping firmly.

In the middle of the night, two streams of hot urine splashed onto the wall in the alley.

“We’re different from other doctors!” Lu Xuda’s head was pressed against the wall as he urinated crookedly.

“Other doctors treat illnesses, but we change patients’ perspectives on life!” Bo Xu shook his alcohol-numbed penis… “This plan must be continued… my thesis… my book… hehe…”

until.

Until this perfect system was disrupted by an extremely erratic string of gibberish...

8

Twenty-three years have not passed in the blink of an eye.

Every day was excruciating torture.

When the two of them saw the evening news together in the bar, they were both silent. Lü Xu guessed that Bo Xu must have been trembling with fear, because his own hands were shaking so badly he couldn't hold his glass steady. That night, after drinking themselves into oblivion, they slept at opposite ends of the street.

From then on, no one mentioned it again, and no one ever started a plan to transform life again.

Bo Xu's brilliant thesis became a worthless scrap of paper with no follow-up. The two, once close friends who had worked side by side, became complete strangers. They would quickly avoid each other if they saw each other in the staff cafeteria, and they never spoke on the phone. When they accidentally brushed past each other in the corridor, they would both avoid eye contact. Three years later, Bo Xu applied to transfer to another hospital.

This secret, like a heavy, rusty chain, has been shackled in the hearts of Bo Xu and Lü Xuda for many years.

It wasn't until the farewell ceremony that Lü Xuda dared to gaze into Bo Xu's eyes in the black and white photograph.

"So it really is true."

Lu Xu devoured the delicious roasted frog leg, closing his eyes to savor the taste: "When people are in dire straits where they could die at any moment, they really discover the meaning of life. Haha... The meaning of life is that you absolutely don't want to die before you finish eating the frog."

When even the frog's bones were gone, Lü Xuda gained a completely new understanding of the meaning of life.

"I want to eat another frog... just one more... just one more..."

He stared into the distance, completely unaware that the energy from the frog he had just swallowed would be enough to help him find the next frog that had died on the way.

This journey lasted another thirteen days.

At the edge of the jungle, when the emaciated Lü Xuda saw the first "person," he fainted from excitement.

9

"I went to the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, and it took me a lot of effort to sneak back across the border."

Lu Xu laughed and looked at Old Deng.

After a difficult journey back to Taiwan, Lü Xuda couldn't find Lao Deng. Two weeks later, Lao Deng called him, saying he had just returned to Taiwan and asked if he wanted to get together. So they arranged to meet at this chain steakhouse.

Old Deng has a limp. He just spent forty minutes telling a story about a poisonous scorpion in the Jordanian desert.

Now that they had both set off, there was no need to hide anything. Lü Xu asked many questions about things he had deduced the answers to, and Lao Deng also shared his experiences at length. In addition, there were many "teammates" he had met before setting off in the rooftop addition of that small apartment.

The woman known as the "Saintess" was less a high-priced prostitute and more a top-notch navigator who could take you to any corner of the world for just 100,000 New Taiwan Dollars.

As for where that corner is, the saintess doesn't know, and you certainly won't know either; it all depends on luck.

Perhaps blood is also a condition for teleportation; the saint only possesses navigational abilities during her menstrual period. Each time her period begins, the saint sends a text message to the traveler's phone number written on their calendar. The traveler can then decide whether to depart, but it's best to set off immediately on the first or second day after receiving the message, otherwise they might miss the opportunity because the saint's period has ended. Therefore, it's advisable to pack in advance.

Indeed, as Lu Xuda speculated, the more menstrual blood there is, the stronger the teleportation ability. The most outrageous case is being teleported to the foot of the Himalayas, but there are also cases of being teleported to Qimei Island in Penghu.

The dangers of setting out are self-evident; Lü Xu had experienced them firsthand—if he hadn't grabbed onto the vines in the tree, he wouldn't have even had the chance to experience hypothermia, hunger, hallucinations, or despair. Therefore, many travelers must have been transported to some extremely dangerous area, where they undoubtedly experienced unimaginable suffering and despair, though they might not necessarily return alive to boast about it.

"What are you showing off?"

"Showing off how close we are to death." Old Deng munched on his bone-in steak with relish.

Haha, Lü Xuda laughed sincerely.

Old Deng said that among the people he met in the Saintess's Salon last time, there was a man whose skin was so dark it looked like it was about to smoke. His dark skin was from being roasted in Death Valley, Nevada, USA.

As for the old man whose left eye was covered by a black eye patch, his eye had been taken by wild monkeys on the banks of the Congo River. Why the monkeys took his eye is a story full of twists and turns, a tale of survival.

A young man who had lost two fingers nearly chopped off and ate his own foot on the Siberian tundra. He claimed to have seen the legendary Yeti in a blizzard, but it could also have been a hallucination caused by extreme hunger.

The middle-aged man with a full beard had a particularly interesting experience. On the third day of his journey, he fell from mid-air into the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately, he remained calm, took off all his equipment in the sea, and then spent two days drifting and sinking to a nearby island. He survived on the island for seven weeks before a ship finally passed by.

The old man, who wears Ray-Ban glasses around his neck, has traveled eleven times, visiting strange places such as the Gobi Desert, K2, and Easter Island, but he has also been transported to a ladyboy bar in Queens, New York, and to the carnival of Oktoberfest in Germany.

The saint uses the miraculous contraction of her vagina to transport travelers to landing points, which are randomly distributed across the Earth's surface. Human footprints are extensive, but in terms of actual surface area, the power of civilization's penetration is still insufficient, and almost all of them can successfully lead travelers to desolate, uninhabited places filled with despair.

"Who exactly is this Holy Maiden? How does she possess such superpowers?" Lu Xu asked a question that everyone had asked before.

"Nobody knows," Old Deng replied, echoing the answer given by the senior who had brought him into the society.

"Doesn't the government know? Shouldn't they be doing something about these superpowered individuals? The government should send someone to capture the Holy Maiden..." General Lü Xu swallowed the words "capture and study" back down his throat.

"This is a secret among many travelers, and it's about self-discipline," Old Deng said casually. "Who the Holy Maiden is or why she possesses this power isn't the point. The point is: we need the Holy Maiden."

“We need her vagina.” Lu Xu frowned.

"That works too," Old Deng said noncommittally.

The two enjoyed the meal without any threat to their lives.

He doesn't talk much, but he eats a lot.

"When are we leaving next?" Old Deng asked slowly, gnawing on the tough flesh clinging to the bones.

"Leave? How could that be?" Lü Xuda slowly twirled the noodles covered in tomato sauce with his fork.

Please, you've finally returned to real life, experienced everything you needed to experience, and reflected on everything you needed to reflect on. Taipei has plenty of good food and drink, so why are you still risking your life?

Lu Xu swallowed the thoroughly chewed noodles without a second thought.

Old Deng revealed another mysterious smile.

10

Three months later, Lü Xuda set off again.

This is the fourth day of my period.

The moment Lü Xuda ejaculated inside the "saint's" vagina, he suddenly saw a hyena devouring a quarter of a zebra right in front of him, and his heart nearly exploded. After cautiously leaving under the hyena's growling warning, he used his newly purchased GPS locator to confirm that he was in Tanzania, Africa.

This time, the equipment was much more complete, and it only took two weeks to return to civilization from the primitive steppes of Tanzania. Thanks to proper food distribution, there was no painful level of hunger during this time, only a little thirst.

"Not enough."

Lu Xuda sat in the tour guide's jeep he had met by chance, watching thousands of zebras running together and muttering to himself.

So they set off again very quickly.

This was the "third day," and the saintess's violently contracting vagina transported Lü Xu to a cold mountain ridge.

Looking out over the vast forest, the leaves are golden, fiery red, or emerald green, creating a beautiful and colorful spectacle.

"This is... Southern Europe, the Carpathian Mountains?" Lu Xuda muttered to himself as he looked at the GPS satellite navigation analysis: "The eastern branch of the Alps, at an altitude of 2,100 meters."

Although it appeared to be a vast wilderness, Lü Xuda reached a mountain dwelling in just four days, showing absolutely no sense of danger. After scratching his head for a long time at the door, Lü Xuda finally couldn't resist knocking and asking for a cup of hot coffee.

On my fourth trip, I finally encountered the second day of my intense menstrual period, when I was full of energy.

Opening his eyes and regaining consciousness, Lü Xu couldn't help but gasp as he activated the GPS...

"The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan?" Lu Xu's heart clenched.

Gunshots rang out in the distance. Lü Xuda found a large rock to hide behind. The gunshots continued for more than ten minutes without stopping, occasionally interspersed with deafening artillery fire and screams that were hard to classify as hallucinations.

It seems this survival theme isn't just about hunger and trekking; it also includes the relentless flames of war. Lü Xuda was surprisingly excited.

What kind of scene will we see?

What crazy calamities will I encounter next?

Will I die?

A stray cannonball landed a hundred feet to Lü Xuda's right, shattering the deformed boulder. The violent shockwave sent his feet off the ground and temporarily deafened him.

At this moment, Lü Xuda realized what he was doing.

I've become part of the "crisis proximity syndrome," and those travelers who want to set off as soon as they've saved enough money are severe sufferers... and that's what I'll become in the future.

Honestly, no traveler really wants to die. It's just that the sense of survival on the streets of Taipei is so thin that if you abandon your dignity, you can easily survive by simply picking something out of a roadside trash can. It's not difficult at all.

Humans are just despicable.

Once you've experienced that desperate feeling of having to live no matter what, just once! Just once! You simply can't live in this ignorant and numb Taipei anymore. You'd be nothing short of a walking corpse, your very soul would be numb.

To reclaim that intense sense of existence, putting oneself in a perilous situation of utter helplessness becomes a necessary condition. It's funny, really; if I hadn't experienced it myself, I would never have believed that humans would strengthen their survival instinct by getting close to death.

“Bo Xu…my dear old friend…”

Lu Xu tilted his head back and watched the rotor blades of the US military helicopter slowly glide across the smoke-filled night sky: "You really should have come here. You would have known how pointless it is to commit suicide out of guilt."

After his fourth miraculous escape, Lü Xu returned to Taiwan and spent half a year recuperating from his injuries.

Upon re-examination of the wound, which had been treated in an Afghan field hospital, doctors were astonished to find seven tiny shrapnel fragments. Had they been left untreated, the fragments would have eventually caused him to bleed to death due to blocked blood circulation.

Old Deng brought a basket of fruit to visit him, walking with difficulty, dressed in heavy gear like an Iron Man.

"Where did you go last time?" Lu Xu asked, scrutinizing the able-bodied Old Deng.

"The San Francisco gay pride parade." Old Deng rolled his eyes and burst out laughing.

After a brief chat, Lao Deng left, presumably setting off immediately after leaving the hospital.

Lying on his hospital bed, Lü Xu enthusiastically flipped through the dozen or so world geography encyclopedias he had ordered from CCTV-4. With each page turned, he gazed at the beautiful photographs and wondered where he would be transported next. The Queensland rainforest? Nepal's Annapurna? Uganda's Rwendoli Mountains? Namibia's Skeleton Coast? Wouldn't it be pretty cool to be transported all the way to the Himalayas?

You might still be unlucky enough to fall from mid-air into the ocean, suffocating within a minute as seawater fills your lungs. Come to think of it, 70% of the Earth is covered by water… well, that's not really unlucky, just a matter of probability.

Closing his geography encyclopedia and looking at the nearly dried-up plate of drops, Lü Xuda couldn't help but sigh. What the photographers hadn't captured was the immense, consuming power of nature hidden behind these beautiful pictures. No matter how well-prepared humans are, standing alone amidst beautiful scenery, they still have to rely on a meager stroke of luck to survive.

The fifth time she set off naked from the waist down was a massive, near-collapse-inducing ordeal.

The air was bitterly cold.

"So, despair can be an addiction..."

They wore oxygen masks over their mouths and noses, and life jackets that could expand rapidly.